KUALA LUMPUR: The Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Ministry looks set to reopen the case on the National Feedlot Corporation (NFC).
This, said new Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Minister Salahuddin Ayub, forms part of Pakatan Harapan’s pledge to review controversial projects from the previous administration.
“The Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Ministry will reopen the cattle-farming project case, under the National Feedlot Corporation (NFC),” Salahuddin said in a statement via Parti Amanah Negara’s Facebook page on Thursday.
The NFC project came under scrutiny in 2010, when the Auditor General’s report highlighted its failure to achieve its aim of breeding 8,000 heads of cattle in Gemas, Negri Sembilan.
Matters came to a head one year later, when PKR vice-president Rafizi Ramli claimed that the company, under its owner Datuk Seri Mohamad Salleh Ismail, had purchased luxury condominium units.
Salleh was subsequently charged with four counts of misappropriating RM49.7 million from NFC. He was later acquitted of the charges.
Rafizi, in 2016, lost a defamation suit and was ordered to pay Salleh and NFC RM200,000 in damages.